Andy's Choice Award

Normally, this award goes out to a game or supplement out of the bunch that
I've played that I found deserves more recognition for some reason or another.
Of course, I didn't have time, money or the energy to play everyone's games,
but this recognition was given anyway with this fact in mind.

Normally, for this award I made mention of a up to perhaps three games, singling
out one for the Andy's Choice Award. This year, being the last year at the
helm, I'm going to recognize a few more games.

2004: Oh FXXX...

That's what I thought last year, when I saw one interesting
small-press game come out after another, after another. I kept thinking of
all the new releases in terms of eligibility for the Indie RPG Awards, and
what it came down to was too many games, too many excellent ideas brought
to life through supreme effort, and not enough awards to go around. So here's
my shortlist of random awards, followed by my pick.

The "What the Hell will this Game do to the Industry??"
Award: The Shadow of Yesterday. This was one of my favorites of last
year, as it seemed to combine the best parts of several other good systems
while coming up with that funky "Bringing Down the Pain System",
a way to zoom in and zoom out of conflicts. Aside from the strength of the
game, the remarkable thing about this game is that it was written under
the Creative Commons license. That means that if you were ever interested
in selling a game or supplement to a solid fan base, you could take what
you want, ignore the rest, change stuff as you see fit, and sell your game
for profit. It was an exciting step past the OGL, and we'll see how it changes
the landscape in a year or two.

Most Advanced Mathematics in an RPG: Infinite Legends.
Infinite Legends didn't see a lot of peer votes, probably because what it
tries to do it does extremely well: But the people who want this kind of
game, while out there, are few and far between.
For example, this game lists "Effect Ranks" (which you can use
to do special abilities, spells, etc), and calculates them by the following
equasion: "Effect Rank = [Square Root of (0.8*Effect Points) -1]/2".
Damage (kind of like Hit Points, called Trauma Ranks) are calcluated with
this: "Trauma Ranks = Success of Attack * (Damage Rank of Attack after
subtracting Attack Rank)/Resistance Rank". The Molarity of common acids
has its own table. There is an entire page dedicated to the Mass and Density
rank of various substances, prefaced by the sentence "It is often very
important to know how much mass an object has". Seriously, I don't
intend to poke fun at this game, because it's not like these rules come
out of nowhere: The author has indeed cleverly done his research in making
this generic, and VERY rules heavy system. For all those people out there
who like to just sit and do freeform diceless roleplaying, I imagine that
there's an equal number of people who want an all-inclusive system that
takes account of the physical laws of our universe. This is that game. Kudos!

The Game that Looks the Most like you got Ripped Off, but Actually
Totally Kicks Your Ass: LACUNA PART I. I bought this at GenCon last year (after having read most of it in the
free webzine Daedalus). I forgot how much it was at the time, but something
like $20 for a game with not a lot of "high end production value".
I was kinda disappointed in the purchase, until I decided to sit down and
play it: After two sessions, I choked on my words:
"Why the F*** did I earlier think I got ripped off???". Lacuna is like the best parts of Orpheus, Jacob's
Ladder, Jung's Collective Unconscious, Flatliners, and the Lovecraft Dreamlands
all rolled into one, with enough information to juice your players into
the action and suspense, kicking off a campaign that could last a year. It reminded me of the familiar lesson of judging a book by its cover. Lacuna skooled my ass, hardcore.

The "Holy Crap I Can't Believe This is Free" Award:
The Battleaxe RPG. Sure, it's just another fantasy game with elves and
orcs, initiative and skills and hit points... But it's got some seriously
gorgeous art and layout in there. It feels like you're being beaten to death
with designer effort. I can't imagine how long it took to put this together.

The Game with the Highest Chance of Getting Your Wife into
Gaming Award: Cat: A Little Game About Little Heroes. Seriously, if this
doesn't work, nothing will. Very clever game about playing cats. The character
sheet is simple and intuitive, and the whole game screams to get new players
into gaming. Good work there.

Most Background Research for an RPG: Roma Imperious.
Have you seen this thing? It's huge, and it's clear that the author did as
much background research into the subject matter (historic Rome) than most
people put into their daily jobs. Kudos!

Most Likely to get you Thrown Out of GenCon for Selling. Pie Shop. Seriously, if you were back in high school,
being found with a copy of this game would put you in the guidance office
for a year.

"The Only Thing Missing is a 'Hot Coffee' Mod"
Award: Dog Town: Core Rules.There is absolutely no other game or gaming
system out there, indie or mainstream, with this much background and emphasis
on the roleplaying of illegal activites. I have not played this one yet, but
after reading some of the background, it's just a matter of time. It plays
out like a crime drama on Showtime.

The Game with the Highest Chance of Making You Cry: Dead
Inside. I played my first game of this at a Con last year: Another
person was the GM, and there were only two players. All of us were guys, and
pretty butch at that. But just the deepness of the subject matter, the empathy
that can be built with the characters and the background cahracters of the
game, and the emphasis on redemption and self-confrontation without "going
for guns" just floored us. We had never met before that session, but
by the end we had one or two "misty eyed" moments. It's definitely
one of the most mature, deep roleplaying experiences I can point to. An incredible
game, that anyone who thinks of themselves as "A Real Roleplayer"
needs to try.

Finally, The Winner of the Andy's Choice Award goes to:

PRIMETIME ADVENTURES

I've played some eight or more games of "PTA" since its release
last year, with various different people from all walks of life. Unless you're
playing with total jerks (and why would you be playing then, right?), it is
nigh impossible to run a bad or unentertaining
session of this game. Sure, there's a lot of gimmicky TV-speak in it like
Fan Mail, Budget, Issues and the like, but when it comes down to it, this
game forces group cooperation, it forces getting right into the story without
wasting any time, and gets everyone involved in their own character's actions
as well as the overarching story. Its use of "scene framing" has
been adopted by almost everyone who read this game: For many of us, it is
impossible to run a roleplaying game, any
game, without ignoring the traditional style of play and dividing the
game's story into small scenes of hard-hitting story, plot-pushing and conflict.
The effects of this game in the roleplaying scene as a whole are just starting
to be felt, and in a few years I imagine we'll see a majority of designers
borrowing from PTA-style play effects in their own games.

There's a common discussion topic on RPG Forums: "If you
could only bring three games to a desert island to play with friends, what
would they be?" With the success I've had with both friends and strangers,
and gamers from all walks of life, my choice would be at this moment "Three
Copies of Primetime Adventures, so that when one wears out from overuse we
can use the next copy." It really is that far up my psyche.

That's all for this year, folks. Thanks for stopping by- Now
get out there and game!